Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives.

Downloadable Content For This Game

Recommended By Curators

"A great Side Scroller with a neat mechanic of changing the view. This game is 100% worth getting. One of the best indie platformers almost perfection."

Reviews

"Fez is joyful. [...] There's a lot to be said for a game that can make a grown woman squeal with glee dozens of times in a playthrough (especially a game that doesn't star Hello Kitty). In short, the long wait for Fez is entirely worth it. Play it, and I dare you not to smile."
100% – Joystiq

"The game's unique artwork, its perspective-shift mechanic, its nostalgia for the 16-bit years and its bewitchingly strange setting all exist in total harmony and make a single, deliberate statement."
10/10 – Eurogamer

"The sum of Fez’s intelligent level designs, perception mechanic, massive number of stages and secrets, and incredible art is so much more than just a shout-out to old-school gaming. Fez is a game in love with games."
9.5/10 – http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/04/11/fez-review

About This Game

Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives. Explore a serene and beautiful open-ended world full of secrets, puzzles and hidden treasures. Unearth the mysteries of the past and discover the truth about reality and perception. Change your perspective and look at the world in a different way.

I really liked 2001: A Cube Odyssey. Okay, it's called Fez, but like Kubrick's epic, I'm going to recommend this game and tell you that it's challenging and artistic and generally great. I'm also going to tell you what a piece of ♥♥♥♥ it can be and why some might be turned off by it (again, like 2001).

Fez carries a similar theme of striving to engage with things beyond our understanding. It also mirrors neatly the invetervention of a vast alien intelligence in the affairs of a primitive people, And, before you ask: yes, things get trippy and a bit pretentious toward the end and, yes, no matter how firm our grasp on the physics of things Fez will always have inexplicable bits beyond the ken of our primitive monkey brains.

Our vast alien intelligence du jour is a cube. Yup, that's right, a cube: one of the platonic solids, a d6, one of the basic units of Lego, those dang boxes you'll be pushing in almost every video game ever. But, hey, you're a cool 2D dude living in a 2D world so it totally blows your mind, man. Also, it gives you the ability to rotate the world around its axis, showing you hidden sides of things and allowing you to rerrange the environment along your 2D perspective to solve puzzles. And, if I haven't tortured the 2001/Fez comparison enough, quite a few of those puzzles will make you feel like a baboon impotently smashing a bone against a futuristic space monolith.

Fez delivers all of this through retro-style pixel graphics hung over a 3D frame. Everything is colorful and appealing and each environment is vast, but carries its own distinct tone and character that keeps exploration exciting. It's just a visually charming game. Well, there were one or two bits with harsh flashing and garbage that made my eyeballs want to jump out and commit seppuku for the harm they were doing to my head, but mostly visually charming. Yeah, sticking with that.

Your goal in Fez iso to collect cubes and cube fragments through platforming and solving puzzles. While platforming you rearrange the world to create a path for you to climb and jump up to get collectibles and reach new areas. Falling to your doom just places you back at the ledge you fell from and there are few other hazards. It's casual in the sense that there is no combat, but there are a few sections where the timing and precision required are viscious. Most of these are only for 100% completion; not necessary for the basic ending.

The platforming challenges will test your logic, but won't tax you to your limits. As for the "puzzle" puzzles, well, that is your hardcore experience, mister gamer man. Some of the puzzles will require you to observe and relate hints from locations spanning the game's massive map. Areas you might not have been to in hours. It will test your cryptography skills and even your ability to think outside the game. Some of these are quite clever, but many of them will be those sorts of puzzles where you either get them quickly or you never will. I think where the game missteps badly are its small number of puzzles that ask you to use resources beyond the scope of the game. While almost anybody playing Fez will have internet access and the power to decipher a QR code, for instance, some people will likely stumble on what they require to do so, and, more isidiously, puzzles like that tell the player that not all the puzzles in the game are self contained. Since you've been quite clearly told you need outside knowledge for a minority of the puzzles, you might go looking outside the game for answers when a little more patience and exploration could do the job.

Now, my stupid self will shout those puzzles down as being "unfair" and then take them behind the shed, while you might be some enlightened space being who finds ciphers based on that bit about the fox and the dog and the English language quite dull. Either way, none of the worst puzzles are needed just to get the normal end.

There are also three puzzles based on obscure moon logic that I'm pretty sure only specialists and/or the combined force of the internet were meant to solve. Solving these does basically nothing and doesn't detract from the game, though they are included side-by-side with the games other puzzles with no ceremony whatsoever. What I'm saying here is: to enjoy Fez, you've got to pick your puzzles, be okay with walking away, and try to be patient for a little while before you spoil them for yourself. That's how you'll get the most fun out of the game.

And it is a fun game! A really fun game, even! So pick it up and get ready to rotate your brain!

P.S. If you're on the fence about getting Fez because you've heard that Phil Fish is a righteous ♥♥♥♥, my advice is just to get it. From what I've read, Phil seems like a guy who just doesn't handle people well and could maybe use some anger management, rather than somebody with genuinely bad intentions. Ultimately, I don't know the guy well enough to make that judgement and I don't think the media has given a broad enough perspective on him for anybody who doesn't know him personally to make that judgement. What I do know is that Fez is the result of several people's hard work and is a cheerful, inclusive, brilliant experience. It's worth a few bucks on its merit alone and anybody who created it can't be all bad.

I was going through a queue recently and, having played Edge and Beep, saw FEZ as one of my recommended games. This game is incredible for it's price. Heck, even if this game was 2-dimensional it would still be a great puzzler! But one of the most unique and certainly enjoyable aspects of this game is the ability to rotate the entire world to explore new areas. Here are some of the finest points of the game.

Innovative Ideas

Take your favorite Mario Bros. game and compare it to FEZ. Where regular platformers, such as Mario Bros., have only the basic 2-D sidescrolling capability, FEZ has a fully rotatable world, where turning the world opens up new objects to jump on, new cubes to collet (see below), and new rooms to visit. It's as if the developers said "I'll call your two dimensions, and I'll raise you a third dimension!" In all seriousness though, this is by far the most compelling part of FEZ. It is what truly makes it stand out as a platformer.

FEZ consists of linear gameplay, but the way that the "doors between worlds" are presented to the player make it seem like you have endless choices to make. There is no time limit to the game, and taking full advantage of this situation, I found myself constantly fully exploring the worlds before moving on to the next. The originality of FEZ is an easy 10 on my list.

Objective

FEZ is centered around the objective of collecting cubes to unlock new worlds. There are 32 cubes to collect, with each cube having a number of pieces to find in each world. To unlock the second world, you have to collect two cubes. To unlock the third world, you need 4 cubes (including the previous 2). For the fourth world, you need 8 cubes (including the previous 4 cubes). It's a really nice progression system that is well timed and not overbearingly, excruciatingly long and difficult.

Addictiveness

One of the things that I personally liked about this game is that it really isn't very addicting. You won't feel like playing it every time you open Steam, but I can assure you that there are plenty of times that you will be compelled to buy it. While this might be a con for some players, I found myself playing the game less frequently but for longer periods of time, which gave me a better experience when playing. I would not go so far as to call the game addictive, but it surely isn't boring in any sense of the word.

Controls and Graphics

The game has simple pixel graphics, but the colors are really vivid in this game. The developers chose really bright color schemes and not dull/dark colors, which I have seen ruin games before. The only thing here is that when you rotate the world, there are no shadows so it is often difficult to tell which direction you have to turn.As for controls, the default controls spread all the way from left ctrl to the arrow keys. For me, this is a big time no-go (the only exception being The Binding of Isaac). When FEZ adds an option to change the controls to at lease wasd/ijkl, the controls system will inprove considerably.

Value

Having gotten FEZ as part of the Steam Summer Sale, it was just one of many games I picked up over the course of the week-and-a-half event. However, as soon as I played it, I realized the amazing deal that I had gotten. In fact, I even mentioned to some friends to go and give it a try. For the 2 bucks that I got it for, FEZ is simply amazing. At full price, if you're into puzzlers and platformers, buy it. If not, still buy it. Trust me, it's a great game and the price is right.

Aspect

Rating

Originality

10

Addictiveness

6

Graphics

8

Value

10

Overall

9

Final Points on the Game

Not only is FEZ a great platformer, the rotating world concept also makes it one of the most unique games in it's class. This is a must-buy!

Be sure to check out any of my other reviews on my profile, and please upvote if this helped you, I hope it did! Thanks for reading!

Visually stunning and interesting of course, but that can only carry a game so far, exploring becomes tedious and dull after a while as the puzzles don't really evolve much beyond the flipping perspective mechanic and the areas are connected in a confusing mazelike fashion that just left me feeling unsure of where to go and not really motivated to bother methodically searching around, maybe this just isn't my sort of game but I can't recommend it